Risking Cooties

a Sermon for Proper 19C
Text: Luke 15:1-10


GOD of Hope and Wonder, you give and give and give to us. Help replace the jealousy we feel when you give to others with joy. Amen.


I have an irrational fear of garbage. It isn’t really compulsive or that I’m afraid that the garbage itself will do anything to me. It’s just that I’m worried about contamination. When I touch the garbage bag, I feel like my hand is contaminated. I want to clean it and I don't want to touch anything with it. So when I take the garbage out, I prefer to do it one bag at-a-time because then I don’t turn the doorknob with a contaminated hand—I keep one free. I know its irrational.

In many ways, this morning’s gospel lesson deals with that same irrational fear of contamination. Let’s call it what we have been calling that stuff since we were kids: cooties. It’s a fear of cooties. And the pious people are afraid of the cooties. So they obsess about staying clean and pure. This gospel, then, isn’t just about the cooties, but the risk: its about being pure and keeping space and sharing intimacy.

Before the story begins, Jesus was walking. We know the story. He starts out in the north by himself and along the way, he collects 12 stooges: Larry, Moe, and ten Curlys. Then a bunch more stooges start following him that don't get to be counted as official stooges because Jesus wants 12 (to represent the 12 tribes, I suppose). Then people start following him that heard, saw, and met Jesus along the way and want to be a part of what He is doing. But of course, this isn’t only one type of people: Jesus is followed by all sorts: which includes the riffraff. So tax collectors, prostitutes, and other people that always have cooties come along. And of course, he also collects the pious: the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees. All of these people are following Jesus: thousands following him.

So what happens from the start? Jesus “welcomes” and eats with the sinners. Now, this doesn’t sound so bad to us, but the word translated as “welcome” is more literally “to bring into one’s arms”. So Jesus is hugging and kissing these people…these people with cooties. It isn’t like he’s giving a handshake that can be easily wiped off. He’s getting them all over his arms and his chest and his face. He might even be kissing these people on the mouth, getting the cooties all over the place. And after this, he doesn’t sit with them for a couple of minutes then go take a shower—to clean all of that stuff off of him. He stays there. He lives there where they are. He lives in the dirt and impurity. This is the radical nearness that Jesus was practicing.

Now, the Pharisees, of course, get mad at him. And we know the main reason: because Jesus broke the rules. This is par for the course by now. Jesus is flaunting his rule breaking. But let’s be honest: it isn’t just that, is it? Many today would be horrified by this action, too. Because we want Jesus to remain pure. He can’t have cooties; he can’t be compromised; he must remain purely divine. So I imagine them pleading with Jesus: “let the disciples do that. Don’t get yourself dirty; we need you. Send them.” Jesus must remain untainted.

Jesus responds to this with three parables about lost things: a sheep, coin, and son(s) because he wants to talk about intimacy. Each of these parables is about separation and distance. Each is about our distance from GOD. And yet, in each, GOD comes to the lost. GOD searches for us. And isn’t that what Jesus was doing? He was going to the lost, and sharing intimacy with those that weren’t on the inside, weren’t safe at home or being responsible? He went to them and risked everything to be with them and to share in that space with us.

It seems to me that Jesus is calling on us to go to each other. He answers the question about his own intimacy by talking about GOD. He means for us to go to one another as GOD comes to us. Even though we might not want to or we’re scared or we have pious people telling us not to, we’re to go. I’m reminded of prison ministry programs or ministries amidst the diseased and dying. I’m reminded of inner city ministries and ministries with the rural poor.

Jesus encourages us to think about a dangerous concept: to put ourselves at risk for the gospel. It’s going to hurt. It isn’t going to be easy. But it’s right.

It’s about risking cooties.


NOTE: The actual sermon was preached from very simple notes. This is a recreation posted over a month later on October 13th.